Winter is coming. It has been snowing all day. Its only September 13th. Blahhh! A Facebook meme: Mother Nature: “It is not possible to have all seasons in one week!”Alberta: “Hold My Beer!”

I guess this effort will be part one, of I don’t know how many parts, over how many days, dealing with the current media scrum relating to misbehavior and crime on the part of nominally catholic prelates of the highest rank.

What a mess, its what PF likes to call a “lio”. Speaking extemporaneously he likes to encourage others, like young fans, to “Start a “Lio! Make a big ruckus!”. Well, Pope Francis wanted a “lio” and now he has got himself a nice big “lio”.

His problem is that he didn’t expect it to be in his courtyard and his publicists have dropped the ball big time. Where is Eugenio Scalfari when one needs him?

I guess PF didn’t understand that his darling media friends are not his friends, they just want blood, whether it’s PF’s enemies blood or his own blood doesn’t matter to the media devils.

So now we are expecting a big bishop’s conference to … to what? To deal with the problem that has come up? I wonder how that will play? And really, truly none of this matters.

This is the long defeat, mentioned by J.R.R. Tolkien who expressed this well in his stories. Borrowing somewhat from the Norse mythos of the “twilight of the gods,” the Elves of Middle-earth fight what they call “the long defeat,” both against the evil forces of Morgoth and Sauron, and against the decay of all things.

The immortal elves themselves do not age, but as the world around them does, it wearies them. Thus great elf-lords like Elrond and Galadriel use their power to preserve their havens of timelessness, Rivendell and Lothlorien.

Tolkien wrote in his letters that this was not simply a story convention, but a basic belief of his, derived from his Catholic faith. He wrote: “Actually I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’— though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory. (Letters, 255)”

If mankind were actually holy, as his Creator commands him to be: 1 Peter, 1: 15 then the current crisis in the Roman church would not exist.

Rome

We have a crisis today because we did not and do not strive to be holy, and this has been a human constant since long before Christ and the Catholic Church came into the world.

Rather, we always strive to do whatever we want, whenever we want, as often as we want, and then rationalize why its OK for us to do what we want. This is so even though there are many rules of behaviour for everyone else, and our one article of faith is that the rules do not apply to us. And now we are ruled byPandemonium, are we not?

And if anyone does object to our current peccadillo, we belittle, discredit, and attack our detractors with all manner of ad-hominum character assassinations, or if that doesn’t scare them away we deny, deny, deny, and shove the blame off onto any handy scapegoat we can lay hands on. Everyone does that, right? And all right minded people know this to be true.

Or if the rules do actually apply to us then we change the rules … most of the current “sexual misconduct” incidents reported in the current spate of media frenzy, something in the order of 80% to 90%, actually involve adult males indulging in mutual attraction, lust, and drug use. This is now legal in most western nations so what’s the big deal? Whatever … the real crime here is the breach of trust and the subsequent coverups at all levels.

This sort of behaviour has been very much the norm in our current polite progressive culture, which flagrantly does whatever it wants every day around us and has done pretty much all my life.

Oh Canada … why should we be hypocritically pretending to be shocked or upset by some inappropriate diddling in another elite management hierarchy in the good old US of A, eh?

It doesn’t matter the brand or the organization, senior bureaucrats are all highly susceptible to temptation and corruption. They place high value on the perks of power, have a lot to lose, and are very willing to compromise, go along to get along, especially if they have no particular faith except in themselves.

None of this is in any way new and shocking. These sort of things have been going on within and without, both society at large and all churches pretty much since the day that churches and politics came into existence.

What about Billery and Intern-Gate? Ever hear of Profumo? Corrupted power always turns to abuse and eventually to sacrifice to their chosen god. At least Bill and John were into girls … seems that is not so exciting any more.

This whole bucket of filth, along with a serious dearth of answers from ecclesial authority figures, was a huge part of why I left the Roman Catholic Church as a youth back in 1969 … Vatican II and the “Spirit of Vatican II” and never ending homosexual sex scandals … No more trustworthy authorities …

No cred, no cred, no cred, so I decided, in my know-it-all 16 year old mind, that I would Do It My Way! First of all, let’s observe that no 16 year old boy even has something resembling a mind, and secondly, “doing it my way” is the penultimate foundation of all Liberal Progressive evil in the world. The 60’s were just our generation’s edition of the book which humans have been writing since there were humans on the planet.

I returned across the Tiber about 25 years go after exhausting all avenues looking for Truth – no other religion or political system had it. Not Communism, not Fascism, not Zen Buddhism , not Shinto, not Democracy or Socialism, … Monarchy had a clue but only in the context of being under God. But where is the Truth?

Christ and Christ’s Church is the sole repository of Truth regardless of the corrupt and fallible sinners working within that church. It’s not about the human beings wading through the muck of corruption and perversion for their own ambitions. Its all about Eternal Truth.

Another of Karr’s targets was a proposal of the period to abolish capital punishment, which injustice, that is capital punishment, was recently inveighed against by Pope Francis thusly: “Pope Francis has once again appeared to contradict two millennia of clear and consistent scriptural and Catholic teaching.

The Vatican has announced that the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be changed to declare the death penalty “inadmissible” given the “inviolability and dignity of the person” as understood “in the light of the Gospel.”

Karr’s acerbic opinion is “je veux bien que messieurs les assassins commencent” or “let the gentlemen who do the murders take the first step”, or “I wish the assassins to go first”, a view which I happen to share.

Pope Francis

And, indeed, there is absolutely nothing new about deviant sexual shenanigans in the hierarchy of the Roman Church, and all the other western churches as well.

Here is just a short timeline to give us a better perspective not only on how serious the current crisis is but also on how often men and women, human souls, insist on pursuing their own diverse objectives in search of worldly pleasure and gratification.

Even before there was a real established Catholic Church we can start our little reminiscence. What was the societal norm before the Catholic Church? First, just a bit from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

St. Paul, Pieter Paul Rubens

…18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.

30They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

As in the pre-Christian world, so now in post Christian Canada … they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. These days, just you try to get nominated as a Liberal Candidate in any Canadian Federal election anywhere any time … HA!

Good luck with that unless of course you literally signed a statement, on the line, for Justin and the Liberal Party, affirming that you personally support killing babies and seniors and endorse putting your pecker into places it really shouldn’t be put EEEEWWWWW! Personally, and in writing. That’s Justin’s rules – you don’t like it …To Bad So Sad for you.

So, enough for this little post. Much to follow from St. John Chrysostom, the Medici Popes, The Avignon atrocity, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Theresa of Avila, St. Josemaria Escriva, St. John Paul II, St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Clement, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Julian of Norwich.

And also from St. Thomas More, St. Francis de Sales, St. Isidore of Seville, St. John Vianney, St. Claude de la Colombiere, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Pio of Pietrelcina, etc. etc. and possibly others.

Not necessarily in that order but more or less progressing historically as things continued to develop and be preached against by the true practitioners of the One True Faith, unless, of course, I get sick of writing about all this evil BS or lose interest before I finish.

The one thing that all of this evil has in common is Human beings. Its a very good thing that ALL Humans die.

“A gentleman who wears the collar expresses surprise at the surprise. He has been wearing that collar for some time. He was in the seminary so long ago, that he can remember when the classes were taught in Latin. He has lived with degeneration in the Church since before Vatican II — has seen it all, and heard it all, and now he is seeing and hearing more.

“I find it hard to stomach all the misplaced surprise. I hear echoes of Genesis‎: ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ …

“As to clerics who lived lifestyles not in keeping with their calling: one would have had to ‎be a member of the Orange Lodge not to have rubbed shoulders with a multitude of them in the ’sixties and thereafter. …”

***

I’d guess it is appropriate to end this post with a small passage from John 6: 67-71.

(onward from part two) … This does not mean, however, that suffering in the psychological sense is not marked by “activity”. There are, in fact, multiple and subjectively differentiated “activities” of pain, sadness, disappointment, discouragement or even despair, according to the intensity of the suffering subject and his or her specific sensitivity. In the midst of what constitutes the psychological form of suffering there is always an experience of evil, which causes the individual to suffer.

*****

Thus the reality of suffering prompts the question about the essence of evil: what is evil?

Saint John Paul II “The Great”

This questions seems, in a certain sense, inseparable from the theme of suffering. The Christian response to it is different, for example, from the one given by certain cultural and religious traditions which hold that existence is an evil from which one needs to be liberated.

Christianity proclaims the essential good of existence and the good of that which exists, acknowledges the goodness of the Creator and proclaims the good of creatures. Man suffers on account of evil, which is a certain lack, limitation or distortion of good.

We could say that man suffers because of a good in which he does not share, from which in a certain sense he is cut off, or of which he has deprived himself. He particularly suffers when he ought”—in the normal order of things—to have a share in this good and does not have it.

Thus, in the Christian view, the reality of suffering is explained through evil, which always, in some way, refers to a good.

In itself human suffering constitutes as it were a specific “world” which exists together with man, which appears in him and passes, and sometimes does not pass, but which consolidates itself and becomes deeply rooted in him. This world of suffering, divided into many, very many subjects, exists as it were “in dispersion”.

Every individual, through personal suffering, constitutes not only a small part of that a world”, but at the same time” that world” is present in him as a finite and unrepeatable entity. Parallel with this, however, is the interhuman and social dimension. The world of suffering possesses as it were its own solidarity.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Mother Teresa – Small of stature, rocklike in faith, Saint Teresa of Calcutta was entrusted with the mission of proclaiming God’s thirsting love for humanity, especially for the poorest of the poor. God still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion to the poor.

People who suffer become similar to one another through the analogy of their situation, the trial of their destiny, or through their need for understanding and care, and perhaps above all through the persistent question of the meaning of suffering.

Thus, although the world of suffering exists “in dispersion”, at the same time it contains within itself a singular challenge to communion and solidarity. We shall also try to follow this appeal in the present reflection.

Considering the world of suffering in its personal and at the same time collective meaning, one cannot fail to notice the fact that this world (of suffering), at some periods of time and in some eras of human existence, as it were becomes particularly concentrated.

This happens, for example, in cases of natural disasters, epidemics, catastrophes, upheavals and various social scourges: one thinks, for example, of a bad harvest and connected with it – or with various other causes – the scourge of famine.

One thinks, finally, of war. I speak of this in a particular way. I speak of the last two World Wars, the second of which brought with it a much greater harvest of death and a much heavier burden of human sufferings.

The second half of our century (The 20th Century) , in its turn, brings with it—as though in proportion to the mistakes and transgressions of our contemporary civilization—such a horrible threat of nuclear war that we cannot think of this period except in terms of an incomparable accumulation of sufferings, even to the possible self-destruction of humanity.

In this way, that world of suffering which in brief has its subject in each human being, seems in our age to be transformed—perhaps more than at any other moment—into a special “world”: the world which as never before has been transformed by progress through man’s work and, at the same time, is as never before in danger because of man’s mistakes and offenses.

APOSTOLIC LETTER, “SALVIFICI DOLORIS“, of the Supreme Pontiff, Saint John Paul II to the Bishops, Priests, Religious Families and to the Faithful of the Catholic Church on the Christian meaning of Human suffering, pp 7-8, February 11,1984.

Spiritually, socially, politically, economically, the fierce consequences of our choices as a nation whirl around us and threaten us with catastrophe. The storm clouds gather; the thunder rumbles; the darkness descends.

While the tempest approaches, many are asleep. Others sense danger in the air but are uncertain of its source and scope.

Now a new book, “The Burden“, has appeared in the hope of rousing the sleepers and clarifying the danger. Best-selling author Paul Thigpen insists that we are seeing today a repetition of the historical pattern so vividly presented in biblical prophecy, an echo of events that took place long ago. God’s ultimate response to sinful nations is merciful but terrifying chastisement.

Our recent history invites, perhaps demands, such chastisement. If we turn from our evil ways, we have hope of avoiding disaster. But the burning question remains: Will we turn?

This little volume can be read in an afternoon with time out for thinking. It is as bracing as a garbage pail of ice water dashed over our heads.

Will any read it? Or will we simply follow in the footsteps of our forefathers sliding ever more quickly into the abattoir of decline and desolation until no one is left but a small remnant to rebuild what was once the greatest civilization in the history of the world.

I’m not putting my money on our society. Dead horses don’t win races. I see no evidence for optimism in our leaders or our citizens. A demagogue is a demagogue no mater where he buys his suites.

The courage and grit required to turn back will only be forged in the crucible of horror and strife that follows a total collapse of everything we take for granted as permanent. How can a godless society completely submerged in the worship of self even hear God’s warning?

Can one even imagine people listening to God when they have spent their whole lives denying his very existence. Imagine, last night in conversation “Don’t get judgmental, now, everyone is right in their own way. All spirituality is the same”.

Now that’s deeply spiritual. Right up there with crystals and Yoga, and even Eckhart Tolle, a German-born resident of Canada, best known as the author of The Power of Now and A New Earth. In 2011, he was listed by the Watkins Review as the most spiritually influential person in the world. Wikipedia.

Like this:

I see a really simple comparison, a litmus test of thinking ability as it were, which reveals the mind set and moral values of our erstwhile self proclaimed “Natural Ruling Party” lead by Bieber Trudeau.

It involves two simple searches and a direct question for all Liberal supporters everywhere.

First, Google “Nazi Atrocities” and feast your eyes on a long litany of horrifying events and actions which the entire world of the 1940’s recognized as evil and which the whole world believed it was worth dieing to stop.

Second, Google “ISIS Atrocities” and feast your eyes on an absolutely horrifying litany of events and actions which are even worse than the NAZI atrocities because of what they say about this enemy.

In the 40’s, even the Nazis tried to hide the evil that they did, because at some level even they understood that what they were doing was evil.

In 2015, ISIS flaunts every gruesome detail, broadcasting it gleefully to all the world on the internet in bloody living colour.

Is it because they and their leftist, liberal supporters and apologists worldwide do not know or care about moral evil? Is it that they don’t recognize evil as evil? Do they see this as “just another lifestyle” choice which they “shouldn’t be judgmental” about?.

They appear to be perfectly comfortable with beheading and crucifying children, raping and torturing people to death in a proliferation of horrifying ways that leave even Hollywood gore masters breathless with envy and in general inflicting the most misery possible on all they come in contact with. Is this where the progressive ideal is headed?

Can it be that the reason Liberal Progressives like Bieber Trudeau don’t want to stop this evil is because they sincerely don’t feel it is evil. They seem to have no moral compass and the only emotion they seem to feel is envy for ISIS’s courage to just kill their opponents. Is this another manifestation of the universal family of Orcs?

Would they do the same things themselves in a second if only they thought they could actually get away with it? Do they simply lack the courage to come out into the open, to put their desires into practice because they know that our society is “still not ready” for such actions? If you have any doubts about why I ask these questions simply pay a visit to the site “Being Liberal” and read the comments. You see a rolling litany of uncontrolled vitriol, an endless diatribe against everyone and anything that threatens their preferred lifestyle.

I experience a serious temptation to answer a resounding YES! to all of the above questions. That is the only reasonable human explanation which makes sense of all the observed data. But isn’t it more likely that this temptation is only another attack by the father of lies in his never ending work of sowing dissent and hatred throughout the human world.

The Book of Wisdom tells us that God is the author of life. God created and fashioned human beings as well as all creatures, that we might have life. We were created in His image and likeness. We are called to holiness. In contrast, we also read that death is the work of the devil, the result of the envy that the devil had for the life giving creation that God brought about.

The Book of Wisdom is clear. Our choice is life or death. We can choose to follow God and his life giving ways, or we can belong to the devil’s company and experience death. Denying that there is a choice or pretending that one “didn’t know” doesn’t absolve anyone of culpability in these choices.

My choice is to pray for all those who live in the culture of death, in all its many manifestations, that they may personally see Truth, and hear the Lord say to them “Talitha cumi”.

It takes courage to live through suffering; and it takes honesty to observe it. C. S. Lewis

Like this:

Minus 20 degrees Celsius today with a 20 to 30 Km/hr wind. Bitter. Going down to -28 Degrees tonight. Better plug the vehicles in. Made lasagna tonight – comfort food with a good red wine. What has that to do with sins and forgiveness you might ask? Quite a bit actually. The weather is part of what we euphemistically term the “human condition”. Weather, illness, work, food or the lack thereof, comfort, love, friends, enemies, government, evil, good. Dissatisfaction continually at war with contentment.

Man, (and Woman) knows, with an inborn awareness, that something is wrong in this human existence, something not quite defined, a lurking shadow that effects everything we experience. Many of us in these enlightened progressive times like to think that the root cause of this historical disorder is the notion that “a man can do something wrong or evil”. All we need to be perfect is rid ourselves of the silly claim that good and evil exist. It’s all “relative”, right?

Yet evil and discontent seems perennially connected with our condition. Men did not suddenly realize one day that they sinned. From the beginning of history they did not and do not know what to do about the evils that they sent and send into the world because of their sins. They sense that they have done wrong and all the bluster and pretense doesn’t make it feel OK. “I’m OK, Your OK” just doesn’t cut it when the rubber hits the road, no matter what the guru’s of self realization preach.

What man senses he needs is forgiveness. That forgiveness has to be placed in the hands of someone authorized to forgive. No ordinary person possesses this capacity. We are all in this together and if we are to escape our fate we have to be forgiven by someone outside the pit.

Over the last hundred thousand years or so, very few of the billions of people who have lived on this planet have heard of this forgiveness of sins that Revelation postulates. Among those who have heard of it, not many practice it. To cover this situation, we talk of being sorrowful. and we have been taught that God will forgive even if we know nothing of the Sacrament on the forgiveness of sin.

Some expand this view to save everyone, while others suspect that, if everyone is forgiven, no matter what they do, why bother being good? The good and the bad are equally redeemed with or equally without forgiveness, but as mentioned in a previous post “sin clouds our intellect and destroys right judgement”.

We know in our hearts that we need “forgiveness” from some authority above our state, our condition. We need forgiveness from God, from the Divine. And we need genuine forgiveness that does not excuse but requires sorrow, and contrition, and amendment and amends.

“The great sacrifice for the sins of mankind was offered by the death of the Messiah, who is called in Scripture: ‘The Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.’” Samuel Johnson, 1781. The Messiah is the only source of all genuine forgiveness. Even when men and women genuinely forgive they are only passing on that which was given them by the Messiah.

“… Forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart – every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.)

The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily, in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough. As regards my own sins it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are not really so good as I think; as regards other men’s sins against me it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are better than I think.

One must therefore begin by attending to everything which may show that the other man was not so much to blame as we thought. But even if he is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninety-nine per cent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one per cent of guilt that is left over.

To excuse, what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. …”